


Carnal Desire

by aralias



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Community: unconventionalcourtship, Harlequin, Journalism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carnell is exactly where he wants to be in life. He is known as the Carnal Comte, the resident sexpert for <i>Suprême</i> magazine, and his outrageous suggestions for flavouring sex have propelled him to semi-stardom. But when the magazine pairs him up with sexy Deva, aka The Duke of Desire, he knows where he’ll end up – in Deva’s bed. And he plans to enjoy it…</p><p>Deva isn’t happy to learn that he’s been set up to give sex advice to thousands of men. There’s only one man he wants, and he’d like to personally demonstrate just how much he knows. Still, this temporary partnership – in and out of bed – might be exactly what he needs to get Carnell out of his system for good. But it doesn’t look like there’s anything temporary about it…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnal Desire

**Author's Note:**

> Lost Spook had the genius idea of putting minor characters into the Unconventional Courtship generator. This fic would not exist without that initial prompt, so I thank her. 
> 
> There is too much Avon in this fic, and I know it well. His problem is stolen quite shamelessly from something that once happened to Giles Coren, who I rather like but who is also a dick. Perfect, really.

_… And, of course, to nobody’s surprise, an extremely satisfactory evening was passed by each **.** I left her with the ropes and the smallest of the knives, as a memento of our time together. I may also have left a phone number (oh, not mine – please, don’t get excited, dear reader. I fear Le Comte is not yet ready to hand in his spurs (literal, in this lady’s case!), not when there are so many other delights out there, waiting to be enjoyed) – but I dare say she may take some considerable pleasure from what may be found at the other end of that line. _

_As I let myself out of her Kensington apartment, my mind turned again to my old foe, **GP** ’s so-called Duke of Desire. As the evening’s entertainments included several mechanical items of amusement he would perhaps have been less at sea than usual, but then again – they also included a hot-blooded young person, ill-at-ease with their own sexuality. There, I fear, he would have been as innocent as she, and rather than kindling **desire** , I’m sure both parties would simply **desire** the evening to end as soon as possible! I would say more, but space as usual runs short (even if nothing else does), and I’m afraid you and I must part for another week. Until then – Au revoir!_

_[Extract from ‘The Carnal Comte speaks…’, **Suprême** , Feb 16]_

_*_

“Have you seen this?” Deva demanded, brandishing the magazine in front of his editor through the clouds of smoke surrounding the other man. “ _Have_ you?”

“Not … stationary and for long enough to read the words written on it,” Blake said, “but I can guess at what it says.”

“He’s done it again,” Deva said. He threw the magazine down on Blake’s desk, where it slid for a moment on top of a pile of unopened letters, a stack of photographs of Russell T Davies, several different version of the same cover of _GP_ , and a variety of proofs Blake was supposed to be checking before finally ending up caught by the edge of an ashtray.

“That is what I had guessed,” Blake said.

“His entire column now seems to be a set up for a joke about _me,_ ” Deva said as Blake transferred his cigarette from his hand to his mouth so that he could read the magazine without burning it. The rant was somewhat unnecessarily perhaps because Blake had heard a very similar rant only a month before, and then the month before that, and his memory wasn’t as bad as he sometimes pretended. But despite that, he hadn’t taken action yet, and with each new column Deva felt more aggrieved, so where he might have laughed it off once, now he felt it was completely necessary to barge into Blake’s office and wave the offending issue of _Suprême_ beneath his nose until he _did_ take action. “They’re laughing at us over there, Blake. And they will _keep_ laughing until we retaliate.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake said, cigarette back in hand again, “but I still don’t know what you want me to do about it. I also don’t know whether we _should_ do anything about it. If he wants to use half his column to advertise my magazine, I’m inclined to let him. It’s not as if you _want_ to be taken seriously as a sex columnist either, now, is it, Deva?”

(Blake’s magazine, _GP_ , was a front for his political work. A few years ago, he’d run a small publication called _FP_ – Free Press. Like _Private Eye, FP_ took pride in exposing those in power who really didn’t want to be exposed. Blake had been sued well over twenty times during the short period that _FP_ had been running, and unlike _Private Eye_ his lawyers hadn’t been good enough to stop him paying a large amount in damages and spending a few months in jail on multiple occasions. Once the magazine had officially folded because nobody would support it any longer, Blake had taken his staff and started a new magazine -  _GP_. _GP_ was ostensibly nothing like _FP_ in that it purported not to be a political publication, but instead a gay man’s lifestyle magazine. Blake, its editor, _was_ homosexual, and had apparently managed to sell this change of focus to a variety of stakeholders and investors before any of his staff had had to default on their mortgages. Presumably none of the investors had actually _read_ the magazine, though, because it was still peppered with highly inflammatory material hidden in amongst the ‘gossip’ and other fluff pieces, and effectively disguised with moody photographs of men without their shirts on. Very few of Blake’s ex- _FP_ staff were gay; many of them weren’t even men, though most of them were willing to pretend to be either or both as necessary. Deva – who had once written blistering exposés on practices within the tech industry, and who did sleep with men on occasion and had once been foolish enough to tell Blake about it – had therefore been assigned to write a column about male sex toys and their uses. Naturally he had protested, but Blake had said it was very important they have some material that sounded _genuine,_ and that this was completely _vital,_ and that he absolutely and categorically needed Deva to do it. Deva didn’t fancy Blake, but for some reason he’d given in anyway – probably because it was that or find another job. It had been a mistake.)

“If I _do_ have to be a sex columnist, then I’d like to be taken seriously,” Deva retorted. “Not publicly ridiculed by a pretentious, amoral, dandy prettyboy working for Servalan’s amusement!”

“We don’t even publish your name,” Blake protested.

(This was true. The magazine had coined the rather twee ‘Duke of Desire’ label for Deva’s column – a moniker that had inspired _Suprême_ magazine to call their own sex-writer the Carnal Comte, though unlike _GP_ they also published a picture of the man himself, Nicholas Carnell, smiling languidly out of a circle cut-out at the top of the page.)

“Somehow _he_ knows,” Deva said. “That’s why he’s doing it.”

Blake considered this for a moment, and Deva moved closer to the window to get some more oxygen into his lungs. “You used to go to school with him, didn’t you?” 

“Nick? Yes, you know that.”

(They’d been in the chess club together. Carnell had only shown up about twice a term, but he’d thrashed almost everyone despite barely seeming to practice. Deva had beaten him on one single occasion, which he retrospectively thought he should have enjoyed more.)

“Well then,” Blake gestured with his cigarette hand, “couldn’t you just, I don’t know, ring him up and ask him to stop?”

“Oh, yes, that would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? Why don’t you just ring Servalan up and ask her to withdraw any of the _three_ lawsuits she has out against you?”

Blake’s expression darkened as it did whenever someone mentioned Servalan (who, as well as financing _Suprême_ magazine was also the Home Secretary, and the target of almost all of _FP_ ’s most famous articles).

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Can we get him fired?”

Blake made a face. “Deva, I only own _this_ magazine. And even if I did own _Suprême_ , I’m not sure that this is proportional to--”

The door to Blake’s office slammed open, making both men inside jump and the panes of glass in the door rattle ominously in their frames. Someone who had undoubtedly intended to cause precisely this effect swept very dramatically into the room, and threw another open magazine down on the desk in disgust.

“Blake, I demand you _fire_ at least one of your copy editors - more if more were involved.”

“What is _wrong_ with everyone today?” Blake said, massaging his temples with one hand as he used the other to prop open the new magazine.  Deva saw that this one actually _was_ Blake's magazine - the new issue of _GP_ , open at the restaurant section. “What is it? It looks fine to me,” Blake said. “I checked it myself before it went to press.

“ _This,”_ Avon said, stabbing a finger down on the paper towards the bottom of the article. “The final sentence. The _final sentence,_ Blake. The most important part of the entire piece, and it’s completely fucked.”

(Kerr Avon had been one of Blake’s star reporters on _FP_. Where he’d received his information was up for debate, particularly as Blake had served one of his stints in jail rather than reveal the answer, but the information seemed largely to be accurate and it was always deeply alarming. Avon was one of those who had absolutely refused to play along with the gay-man’s-interest angle of Blake’s new magazine, and now wrote a rather incongruous restaurant column that refused to cover any venue within a mile of Soho. Despite or perhaps because Blake had allowed this, there were rumours that the two of them were sleeping together. Whether or not these rumours were true was also up for debate – if you asked Avon they weren’t; if you asked anyone else they almost certainly were.)

“There wasn’t even a need to remove the word,” Avon snarled, clearly getting into the thing now. “There was more than enough room on that line, so don't even think about trying to defend them.” Blake sighed as Avon yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and stabbed it out aggressively in the ashtray. “You _said_ you’d given these up.”

“It’s _one_ slip up,” Blake said, sliding the stack of photographs over the ashtray, which had evidence of rather more slip ups than that. “I still don’t even know what we’re talking about. Deva, I’m sorry, but would you mind doing this later?”

“Are you going to _do_ anything about it later?” Deva said.

“ _Yes_ ,” Blake said, lying with the same ease as he had to Avon, and to equally bad effect as Deva didn’t believe him either. “Absolutely. I will do whatever it takes, Deva.”

“The letter _a,”_ Avon said. “Someone on this staff clearly thinks they know Yiddish better than I do, and has decided to remove the indefinite article before the word _nosh._ ” He caught Blake absent-mindedly removing another cigarette pack from his pocket, and whisked it out of his hands and threw it out of the window. “I did warn you.”

“That was ten quid’s worth!” Blake protested, on his feet in a futile attempt to try and bring the packet back or shout Avon down, and ending up trapped between his two writers.

“Good,” Avon said. “Perhaps that loss will encourage you to pay attention to what I’m saying. Quite apart from being insulting and inaccurate, this ‘correction’ also ensured that my article ended on an _unstressed_ beat.”

“What are you going to do?” Deva demanded.

“I don’t know!” Blake said. “But I’ll think of something, I--”

“Blake,” Dayna said from the door, “have you got a minute to talk about these proofs?”

(Dayna Mellanby was a wildlife photographer, who had somehow ended up involved with _FP_ after meeting Avon in Malaysia where she had been photographing crocodiles and he had been investigating something that still wasn’t current knowledge. They were probably going to lose her at some point, back into the wild, but Blake had promised during the move to become _GP_ that she could take the photographs of the shirtless men. This had been enough.)

“Good God, yes,” Blake said, extracting himself from Avon’s grasp on his jacket. “Several, if you like.” He shut the door, with himself and Dayna on the other side.

Avon sighed, and turned to Deva, as though he hadn't been ignoring his presence throughout the entire interview with Blake. “What were you in for?"

“Nothing. It’s not important,” Deva said.

“Carnell again, I assume,” Avon said without appearing to have heard what Deva had said. “Have you considered assassination?”

“Blake wasn’t _that_ keen on getting him fired,” Deva said, getting drawn into conversation despite his better judgement. “I’m afraid I’d find it difficult to convince him to back a murder attempt.”

“Blake doesn’t need to be involved,” Avon said. He sounded worryingly serious for a moment, but then he continued lazily, “Failing that, ignore him. He’s an idiot. A lot of people are idiots – some of them are even paid to be idiots in public. Don’t make the mistake of listening to them – that’s why Vila’s still around. I don’t think he’ll ever go away now.”

“I don’t think idiot is strictly accurate. He’s one of the country’s top legal minds,” Deva said, feeling the absurd urge to defend his nemesis.

(As well as being irritatingly handsome and amusing, _if_ you liked that sort of cheap humour, Carnell was also a highly paid, highly skilled barrister. He seemed to have joined _Suprême_ ’s staff for fun, and because he was having a lot of sex anyway and might as well make even more money out of it. An article that _GP_ had published the year before put the average _Suprême_ columnist’s salary at £50k a year: _Yet more proof,_ Blake had written, if _it were needed, that the Home Secretary’s vanity project is little more than an embezzlement scheme._ His own journalists were on half that, and considered themselves well paid.)

“Vila?” Avon said. “I must have missed that.”

“No, of course not Vila.”

(Vila Restal was one of the straight men on Blake’s staff happy to pretend to be gay if that kept the money rolling in. He produced listings of gay bars for _GP,_ and well as collecting adverts for escort services. Apparently this involved him visiting a lot of bars, and a lot of escort agencies – very few of which seemed to cater exclusively to men-seeking-men. For some reason Deva had never fully understood he was Avon’s best friend, which seemed to mean that Avon spent a lot of time insulting him, and vice versa.)

“Hm. Well, perhaps Carnell has a point, then,” Avon said. “How long _has_ it been since you had sex?”

“None of your business," Deva said, hearing the irritation in his tone. (It _had_ been a while, but at least if he did go home with someone he would be willing to admit to it the next day.)

“Agreed,” Avon said. “But it is his.”

“I _beg_ your pardon,” Deva said. “What do you mean by that?”

“… Well,” Avon said, apparently rather taken aback, “he’s a sex columnist, isn’t he? I thought that was funny – a play on words. What did you think I meant?”

“Oh, I see,” Deva said, confused now and no longer sure why he’d reacted like that. “Right. No. I didn’t think you meant anything. I’m going to see if I can catch Blake outside Dayna’s studio.”

“He’s not going to do anything about this, you know,” Avon said.

“Really. And I suppose he _is_ going to do something about your A, is he?” Deva said sarcastically.

Avon raised an eyebrow, and Deva decided that rather than another round of _‘What did you mean by **that**?’ _ he would just leave Blake’s office before the thing could get any worse. 

*

“Well, it’s certainly annoying,” Jenna said as they ate lunch together a few hours later (Blake, a veteran investigative journalist, had not been foolish enough to actually go to the place he’d said he was going to, and Deva hadn’t been able to find him in the building). “What I don’t really see is why it matters. Blake’s right – they don’t know your name. If they do print it, we can sue them for libel.”

(Jenna Stannis was Blake’s other leading journalist. Her interest had been in global affairs back on _GP_ , working with and – if she could – separately from Avon. Now she wrote the glossy features on famous gay men that sold the magazine. If anything she was the ex- _FP_ staffer who had moved most out of the political sphere, because casual readers seemed to actually _read_ the articles she’d written, and it had been deemed too dangerous to put anything risqué into her pieces. Jenna didn’t seem to mind this, as long as she was supporting Blake. Politics had never been her particular interest, and now she was using the evenings to study for a history degree, rather than chasing leads. This suited her better all round.)

“It might even be rather a coup,” Jenna finished as she forked another lettuce leaf into her mouth.

“Of _course_ it matters,” Deva said. “Jenna, I’m being made a fool of.”

“No, you’re not,” Jenna said with a half-laugh.

“He’s telling everyone I’m bad in bed, without evidence, with motivation even. How would you feel if that happened to you?”

This time Jenna did laugh. “It wouldn’t.”

Deva rolled his eyes. “Helpful,” he said wryly, though he could see what she meant. Jenna was exceptionally beautiful, and exceptionally competent at everything she turned her hand to. She also had a dry, devastating sense of humour. Anyone who tried to defame her would be shot down almost immediately. “Sometimes I really don’t know why I’m friends with any of you,” Deva said, picking up his tray and moving indignantly over to the collection area. “I’ll solve this myself.”

“Good luck,” Jenna said, returning to her salad with amusement.

*

 _ The Duke of Desire Experiments… (_ _GP, Mar 26)  
_ _It’s often been remarked upon that it’s impossible to buy either manners or good taste. If you could, the Carnal Comte would probably have them. As it is, I can only assume he has other good qualities, though so far remarkably few have been in evidence. The ability to lure the lonely and inexperienced into his lair is hardly the stuff legends are made of (or at least - not ones in which Monsieur le Comte is the hero, anyway). What we do know is that, according to his own magazine, the Comte is very good at sexual intercourse. I would like to be able to comment on this, but as I don’t believe I have any reliable or relevant sources I won’t. I have never slept with the Comte, nor has anyone I have had the pleasure of speaking to. The Comte, on the other hand, seems not to share my scruples. He has never slept with me, nor has he spoken to anyone who has, since I would never be so gauche as to choose the kind of partner who would ‘spill the beans’ to a Tory rag like **Suprême** or any of her writers. Despite this, he feels himself perfectly capable of commenting on my ability in this arena (unfortunately we can’t apparently add modesty or honesty to his paltry list of good qualities). _

_However, rather than stooping to the Comte’s level and insulting him without evidence, I propose a different approach. I’m issuing a challenge. If the Comte is truly all he claims he is (it seems unlikely, but perhaps his stamina does equal his arrogance) he will not object to being judged by a fellow professional. I’m confident that I have nothing to be ashamed of._

“And … this is what you want to print, is it?” Blake said. He turned over the A4 sheet Deva had handed him in case there was something on the other side, but there wasn’t. “You know you were supposed to be reviewing the AutoBlow 2.”

“It’s awful,” Deva said.

“I’m not surprised,” Blake said. He began to chuckle. “I _am_ surprised you didn’t say it sucked.” Deva stared at him until Blake grew embarrassed about this joke, and stopped laughing. “No, but seriously, Deva--”

“If you insist I can add a postscript,” Deva said. “P. S. The only thing more awful than the Carnal Comte’s sense of humour is the AutoBlow 2, which is also a complete waste of money.”

“No, it’s all right,” Blake said. He held Deva’s copy back out to him. “I’ll print this, as is,” Deva tried to tug it away but Blake hadn’t properly let go of it, “ _if_ you write a proper review of that toy for the next edition, _and_ a piece about the new iPad for this one. Agreed?” 

Deva nodded with ill grace, and Blake let go of the piece of paper and collected a still-lit cigarette from the edge of his ashtray, replacing it in his mouth.

“I assume Avon knows you’re still smoking,” Deva said

“No, and I’ll thank you not to tell him. I want that iPad piece on my desk on Monday.”

Deva sighed in as aggrieved a tone as he could manage. “You know what I like most about you, Blake?”

“The fact that I pay your salary?” Blake suggested, which Deva felt was a fair (though cruel) comment. He turned to go, and was almost out of the door when Blake said, “Very handsome man, Carnell, isn’t he?”

Deva turned back, and saw Blake’s eyes were twinkling with mirth. He chose not to answer this base insinuation. Let Blake think what he liked – he didn’t know anything about it. And he did, after all, also pay Deva’s salary.

*

_Well, well – what should I find upon opening **GP,** that obscure and yet persistent denizen of the upper, dustier shelves of the newsagent, this afternoon? A collection of ill-supported leftist propaganda loosely disguised as masturbation fodder? Well, yes – certainly there was plenty of that (the boy on page 16 was particularly divine – I do commend your photographer for finding him), but amongst it – ah, amongst it a delicious challenge addressed to myself. _

_Naturally, I accept. I assume, my dear Duke, that you know where I live? If not, one of the criminals currently employed by Blake (and I think we all know what **that** means, even if he hasn’t told his parents yet) can doubtlessly hack into a protected government database for you, and find out. I believe the 10 th of March suits us both. _

_In the meantime, as I await your coming (repeatedly, don’t worry – I too have nothing to hide), I entertained myself with other more ignoble company this week. And when I say entertained, I do mean **entertained** , and when I say ignoble, **well** …  
_ _[Extract from ‘The Carnal Comte speaks…’, **Suprême** , Mar 16]_

*

Carnell didn’t have a doorbell as such; he had an actual bell with a long rope-pull dangling from it. It almost impressed Deva how incredibly irritating even a doorbell could be, if it belonged to Carnell. The bell jangled, and almost immediately the door was opened, as though Carnell had been standing behind it waiting for him.

“Ah, your Grace,” he said, smiling a very smug, and very handsome smile, “welcome to my humble abode. May I take your coat? Your bag?”

There was of course nothing humble about Carnell’s house at all. It was a very beautiful Georgian property in one of the nicer suburbs of London – one of the ones that nobody who worked for Blake could have afforded to live in. There was a spindly Georgian table just inside the door, which was currently playing host to two large glasses of white wine. Impeccably chilled, judging by the condensation still clinging to them.

Carnell deposited Deva’s jacket and bag on the sofa, and swept both of the glasses gracefully into his hands. He held one of them out to Deva. “A rather fresh Chablis. To your taste, I trust.”

(They’d been only marginally acquainted at school. Nick Carnell had, even then, been a flirt, and a good looking one. His social calendar had been full, so it was difficult for anyone to know him very well. They’d hardly spoken outside of chess club, and not very often then. Deva would have asked how Carnell thought he knew what sort of wine he liked, given that they’d never discussed it before, and he didn’t like the same sorts of things that he’d liked at 16, but he sensed that this would be playing straight into Carnell’s hands – Carnell made a point in his column of talking about how well he was able to predict any partner’s needs and desires – so he ignored it.)

“Tell me, Nick, do you get all your conquests drunk?” Deva said pleasantly as he took the offered wine glass. “I had wondered. It would certainly explain a lot.”

Carnell laughed. “You’re angry. I understand that--”

“ _Am_ I?” Deva said. “I had no idea. Meanwhile I notice you’re _not_ angry – that must be because I haven’t spent the year insulting you repeatedly to my audience.”

“I know, and I do apologise. The depths to which the muse makes one stoop … or in this case, the Home Secretary. Please – allow me to make it up to you.”

“I’m afraid it’ll take rather more than a quick orgasm from someone I despise to make it up to me,” Deva retorted.

Interestingly, he saw Carnell’s smile flicker briefly at this (so, he _did_ care, did he?), but when he spoke again it was in the same assured, languid tone of before. “There won’t be anything quick about it. Didn’t you ask me to be on my best behaviour?

“I don’t think I asked you to be anything at all, except for present and receptive.”

“Well, I’m certainly present,” Carnell said, moving closer. “I wonder what can I do to convince you that I also fill your other requirement?” He abandoned his wine glass (untouched) on another table, so that his hands would be free to finger, and hold, and caress.

“Receptive?” Deva asked.

“Mm.” He was very close now, smiling still, his eyelashes dark over his eyes. It would be easy to kiss him, and that was clearly what he was expecting – people must fall over themselves for Nick Carnell all the time, but Deva had come here tonight not only to sleep with Carnell, but also to prove that he wasn’t sexually repressed and that he was more than capable of handling himself.

“I have some ideas about that,” he told Carnell. “Would you mind passing me my bag?”

“Ah, you’ve brought something stainless steel by njoy?” Carnell guessed as he did so.

“Oh, do you read my column?” Deva said sarcastically, and Carnell sighed at having made another misstep. “No. Something a bit more complex--”

Carnell’s eyes like up with genuine pleasure as the chess board emerged in Deva’s hand. “I wasn’t sure you remembered. Do you want to play it straight, or… is this an offer of strip chess?”

“Neither. Strip chess is rather juvenile. What I’m proposing is that we play…”

“Yes?” Carnell said.

“And every time either one of us loses a piece, the other one does something very nice for them to make up for it. Now how does that sound?”

“You may have found the only way to make me embrace defeat,” Carnell said with a laugh. “Please – the bedroom is this way.”

*

“Again?” he asked several hours later, naked, and indolent, and content, and stretched out across a bed that really should have been too large to be allowed. “Best out of three perhaps.”

Deva shook his head. “I have to get back before the tube stops running.”

“But why?” Carnell said, rolling onto his side to watch Deva getting dressed. “Why not spend the night here?”

“I _like_ being at home.”

“And you don’t like _me_ , is that it?” Carnell asked, though he clearly didn’t mean it, so Deva didn’t bother reassuring him. He felt fairly content himself now, his body warm and relaxed and pliant after several hours in the hands of someone who did indeed know what they were doing. “When can I see you again?” Carnell urged.

Not a good idea, Deva thought. Carnell worked for Servalan, and he wasn’t stupid, so he must know what that meant for both of them. Unlike Jenna or Vila, Deva worked for Blake because he wanted to change the world for the better. That didn’t include dating the enemy. Which was a shame, because Carnell wasn’t stupid – he was clever. He was also handsome, and amusing, and he had a beautiful house, and an equally beautiful way with his tongue.

“I expect I’ll see you next time you write eight columns insulting me in an attempt to get me to retaliate,” Deva said dryly, making it sound like a joke so he wouldn’t have to answer properly.

Carnell raised his eyebrows, propping himself up into a sitting position. “You knew?”

“Not until I arrived here,” Deva said, tying the laces of his shoes. “I _had_ thought that it might all be a joke. I was _prepared_ to be very angry.”

“I won’t write anything anything like that again, I promise. I’ve been shown the error of my ways, and most gratifyingly too. But I didn’t think you would agree to a date, and it was very important to me.”

Deva stood. It would be nice to be important to Nick, but he cherished no illusions that he was. That statement was, like the insulting columns, just something Carnell did in order to get a favourable reaction. Deva pressed a kiss to Carnell’s lips, and straightened up. “Nice try.”

“What about Wednesday?” Carnell asked. “Are you free on Wednesday?”

Deva smiled at him rather than answer. “I’ll see myself out.”

*

_This month, the **Suprême** mailbox has been filled to bursting (like so many things) with letters **begging** to know the outcome of my liaison with the much derided Duke of Desire. Unfortunately, mes amis, a gentleman does not kiss and tell – but fortunately le Comte is no gentleman! (The rank is merely assumed, don’t let it trouble you). So I will naturally tell all. And what a tale there is to tell, mes amis. A tragic one, though, I fear, unless you find failure amusing. _

_The Duke, as expected, is an amateur. He barely knows where his own erogenous zones are, and he certainly wasn’t able to locate mine, despite plenty of prompting from your poor Comte. I spent a tedious two hours enduring the most rudimentary and clumsy love-making. After which, I could do little more than beg him to depart. How disappointing, you may cry to yourselves (I know I certainly did!), but then what more could we expect from someone happy to work for a magazine that is little more than a graveyard for trees? …  
_ _[Extract from ‘The Carnal Comte speaks…’, **Suprême** , Apr 16]_

*

Blake was reading _Suprême_ when Deva let himself into the office. To his credit, he tried to pretend he wasn’t, sliding it under an old issue of _attitude_ , but Deva had already clocked the characteristic white and silver cover of _Suprême,_ and Blake’s awkward, over-cheerful expression.

“It’s all right, I’ve already seen it,” he said as he sat down in one of Blake’s two guest chair. The atmosphere was a lot better in here since Blake had given up smoking – the fog no longer hung about the room at about waist level, so it was now viable to sit with Blake for more than about ten minutes at a time. Blake had apparently claimed this was a mistake, and that he was looking into bear traps to keep away discontented journalists and sub-editors, but thus far no traps had been installed.

“Seen what?” Blake said, unconvincingly. He’d taken to chewing pens and pencils instead to try and stem the craving. Today there was blue ink rather endearingly on his lip, and up near his eye. He noticed the paper in Deva’s hand, and seized on this as a new topic of conversation. “Ah, is that your review?” Deva nodded, and handed it over. Blake studied it for a moment, and then read the first line aloud, “The Autoblow 2 sucks – but not well or consistently.” This made him smile. “I don’t know why I bother to hire writers, really.”

“All I can say is that you would if you’d tried _that,”_ Deva said.

Blake’s smile dropped into a more serious expression. “How was it?” he asked. “You never said."

“The toy?” Deva asked, and Blake shook his head unnecessarily because they both knew that wasn’t what Blake had been asking about. “Better than _that_ suggests,” Deva said, indicating _Suprême,_ which Blake had removed from its hiding place again, since the game was obviously up. “It was good, actually. He was good.”

“Sorry,” Blake said, looking grim. “I didn’t take this seriously before, but I’m sure we can dig up _something--”_

“Thank you, but I don’t think that’s necessary,” Deva said. “In fact--”

He broke off at the sound of shouting from outside Blake’s office. Presumably not Avon, this time, as all of Blake’s copyeditors had been instructed to leave Avon’s articles to Blake himself – not because Blake thought they couldn’t do the job, but just because he didn’t want Avon to yell at anyone else. Deva twisted his head towards the door, and Blake said,

“What on Earth is that?”

They both stood as the door opened, and Nick Carnell entered, looking unusually flustered but just as handsome as usual. Behind him stood Gan, who looked rather perturbed.

“He said it was urgent.”

(Olag Gan ran the production department, and regularly made cakes for the staff of _GP_. He was also well over six-foot tall, and could look distinctly menacing when required. Apparently he’d managed to stop Blake being dragged out of the office the first time that they’d come to arrest him, although it had merely delayed the inevitable as Blake had gone to hand himself in a few hours later. For Carnell to have managed to get past him was quite an achievement.)

“I didn’t write that,” Carnell said, pointing at the issue of _Suprême_ now open again on Blake’s desk. “And I’ve quit – _because_ I didn’t write that. Servalan is evil _–_ I ... assume you’ve noticed that.”

“Yes, we had,” Blake said. “I think it’s all right,” he said to Gan, who nodded and closed the door on the three of them. “Do sit down,” he said to Carnell, taking a seat himself and reaching instinctively for the cigarettes that had until recently been inside his jacket. Finding nothing, he located a pen amongst the table and worried it between his fingers.

“I wrote something quite different,” Carnell said to Deva. Neither of them had sat down yet. “It was probably also indiscrete, and I’m not sure you would have liked it, but we _did_ get a lot of letters. And I wanted to set the record straight. I had a good time, a wonderful time…”

“I believe you,” Deva said.

“I do have the copy on my laptop,” Carnell continued as though he hadn’t heard this. “But I came here as soon as I – Wait, you said believed me, didn't you?”

“You used _mes amis_ twice in one paragraph,” Deva said. “I had thought that was more affected than usual. It doesn’t surprise me that it was.”

“Oh,” Carnell said. “Good. I’m sorry anyway, though, as I say, I wasn’t the one who wrote any of those things. I promise you _Suprême_ won’t publish anything like that again. In fact, once we publicise the embezzlement that you quite rightly indicated might be going on within _Suprême_ ’s walls, I doubt the magazine will publish anything at all, ever again. Incidentally, Blake,” he said, turning to the editor, who was watching this scene with polite interest, “I’ve not only come to throw myself at Deva’s feet, I’ve also come to offer you my services, both legal and journalistic.”

“Thank you, but didn’t you say _GP_ was… let me see,” Blake hunted amongst the old magazines arranged on his desk and found the previous issue of _Suprême,_ “ah – here it is, a collection of ill-supported leftist propaganda loosely disguised as masturbation fodder?”

“Isn’t it?” Carnell said.

“Oh, yes,” Blake agreed. “Though I would have said we were private about our sources, rather than our contentions were unsupported. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were letting yourself in for.”

“I do,” Carnell said. He turned to Deva, “Assuming, of course, that you’ll have me.”

Deva grinned, torn between being embarrassed at the scene, and extremely and unexpectedly pleased at the result. “I’m willing to give you a chance,” he said eventually. “In fact, I think have a chess set in my desk drawer. Shall we see how it plays out?”

“At work? How risqué,” Carnell said with a cat-that-got-the-cream smile. “This time, your Grace, I’m afraid I aim to lose.”  They left together, hand in hand.

Blake, who had no idea what that last exchange had been about and who was frankly very glad of that, closed the copy of _Suprême_ again. With satisfaction, he dropped it into the recycling bin, and started to think about other things.


End file.
